Basement fusion reactor

Do you ever wonder what projects your neighbors have going on in their basements? [Will Jack’s] neighbors might be surprised to find he’s building a fusion reactor. The first step toward completing a Farsworth-Hirsch Fusor is up and running. The picture above shows heated plasma contained in a magnetic field. Next he just needs to up the voltage and inject some deuterium.

Yeah right! Deuterium, aka heavy water, is extremely rare and very difficult to refine. If you’re not familiar with the substance, you should get your hands on the NOVA episode: Hitler’s Sunken Secrets.

Deuterium is actually not that uncommon: it it roughly 1:6500 for hydrogen to deuterium atom for atom. That sound like a lot, but when you consider the sheer number of hydrogen atoms on earth, there’s a lot of deuterium around.

Actually, deuterium isn’t that hard to obtain, as it is not radioactive and is sold in lecture bottles for about $150, however tritium (helium 3) is very hard to obtain by an amateur as it is radioactive.

Nwyaka- you are correct, this is a farnsworth-hirch type fusor and it does use IEC confinement, tokamak fusors use magnetic confinement, however, the ions in it are accelerated due to the inner grid’s negative electromagnetic charge.

Aleksejes- David Hahn’s plan was to build a “breeder” reactor to create fissionable elements and as result, x-rays poured out of his device. In farnsworth fusors, x- rays usually do not appear until the input voltage reaches about 40 kv, which is far higher than mine, which has an input voltage of about -9500 volts DC (from a 15 kv neon sign transformer, full wave recified)

*checking if its April 1st*
…
*nope*
This is a joke, right?
People experimenting with radioactive substances and apparatus in their homes!? In neighbourhoods?
Its downright irresponsible. Oh yeah its great if HE wears a lead vest, how about every other poor sod in his neighborhood, and beyond? Babies and children included? Or have we all forgotten that radioactivity travels clean through 1000 house walls? That renders it more dangerous than an LSD production lab.
Call the police on the scum, he should be locked away.

Sure he may have a lead vest on to protect against EM radiation, but the real danger comes from the neutrons that are released if he ever gets this reaction running… I would suggest putting the reactor vessel in a deep pool if you value your life.

D-D fusion reactions have a neutronicity (percent of energy released as neutrons) of 0.66.
So once this thing is up and cooking deuterium neutron radiation could be more of a problem. But if it’s in a basement, I’d only be worried about anyone actually in the basement.

As others have said, this is a far cry from a fusion reactor, and is little more than a novelty; though still a very interesting project.

This device is relatively harmless (certainly, other projects featured on HaD are more likely to kill you than this), any concern about this device is from confusion and misunderstanding of the technology.

Sadly, it is mindsets like Stu’s that have criminally held back research like this (or anything involving nuclear, for that matter).

I just love the continuing “fallout” from the cold war. Everything having to do with atomic power was shrouded with secrecy and miss-information, and as a result you now only need to say the word ‘nuclear’ to make some people’s brains turn off. Have you people ever played with a plasma globe? At this point it’s about the same level of danger.

People have been building these in basements and garages for years. (not to take away from Will Jack’s achievement, just because people have done it before doesn’t make it any easier or less cool)

@24601 @nave.notnilc – NO I will not do my research because I’m not the slightest bit interested in becoming a nuclear fusion scientist, I never claimed that it WOULD generate dangerous radiation, I’m just entitled to be concerned about nutjobs like this guy who could potentially generate dangerous radiation at some point.

If the levels are likely to be dangerous, then he should go to jail for carrying out dangerous experiments in non-industrial areas. Its clearly non govt-authorised, totally unregulated, possibly under-shielded. Simple.

It appears we have some closet nuclear technicians on this comments page, it seems. God knows there’s no concensus on these comments pages as to whether its dangerous or not! I can’t tell whether this shit produces radiation but its damned well irresponsible to find out in a neighbourhood!

@Stu
It should also be noted that though some ionizing radiation is highly penetrating, it still falls off with the square of the distance. It doesn’t have to go far before it falls down to an intensity that is indistinguishable from background radiation.

Without any heavy hydrogens (ie extra neutrons) he is only doing what is called ion multipacting of whatever charged particles remain inside the presumed vacuum chamber.
when he back-fills the vacuum with deuterium or tritium hopefully accelerating some of them into one another fast enough for fusion, he will be producing neutrons which is a radioactive byproduct. This is a pretty difficult task as the vacuum has to be strong, but its possible. if he gets arcing between the charge grids, he can also risk making some nasty x-rays, so good call with the lead vest. For the neutrons i heard borax, which apparently contains boron, is a good collector of excess neutrons.

Your mindset is why scientists are leaving the USA. People can’t advance science when stupid people like you can’t take any slight bit of risk. Do you think electricity was safe when people were discovering it? No way, and many people complained, but look at today, electricity is a must-have. Quit being an idiot and denying science, because science is going to move society forward, your stupid government and their pathetic regulations will only hold it back.

I don’t know what’s worse, somebody making inaccurate comments and fear-mongering; or a person who admits to doing it and says he doesn’t have any intention on getting accurate information because learning doesn’t interest him.

you should put a tungsten carbide shield around it to reflect the neutrons, except for a small hole, on which you mount a neutron collimator, use some laptop batteries in a backpack as energy supply, now mount your fusor on your shoulder like a strogg-railgun from quake.
Now you can go to town and dish out neutron-headshots left and right.

What a bunch of ignorant claptrap and paranoia from a bunch of folks who most likely didn’t even bother to read anything at all about fusors first, or get past the ‘oh shit, it’s nooo cuuu laaaar, run!’.

This is not a dangerous experiment by any stretch of the imagination, other than the obvious, and so far ignored in this thread, dangers inherent in 15 KV DC voltage at non-negligible currents. This is a project that requires a good working knowledge of high voltage, and that’s its primary danger. In terms of neutron flux, it’s really really hard to get to dangerous levels with this. Higher voltage, really good vacuum in a metal jar, and a few refinements are usually necessary before getting more than a few neutrons. Worst case scenario, assuming he gets thousands of times more neutron flux than the average amateur built fusor, you set a bucket filled with water and borax next to it, and mark the neutron shadow of the bucket with duct tape on the floor so you know where the safe area is. You’ll get some neutron activation in certain materials, but that falls off with the cube of the distance so its pretty limited to the jar and the electrodes.